Thanks’
to my friend who brought this to my attention, without things like this to keep
my blood pressure high, I’m pretty sure I’d pass out every 10minutes from how
laid back and chill I am 24/7.
For
those of you who have better things to do with your lives then follow the
idiotic controversy generated by rabid ideologues (on both sides), allow me to
give you the cliffnotes. Recently a company released an expansion for a much
beloved game of the 90’s Baulder’s Gate. The game originally made by Black
Isles Studios (Most of whom now work for BioWare) but now handled by another
company called Beamdog.
Now I
will tell you why this was a huge mistake to start with: If we learned anything
from the “Thief” reboot, if you want to make a unique spin on an established
character everyone will flip their collective shit. Thief (the new one) itself
was a fun intuitive sneak-um-up and had it been released under any other IP it
likely would have done a lot better than it did. As it is, sales were crippled
by changing the lead character from a sulky selfish misanthrope to some kind of
kleptomaniac Batman. Fans want “something that is completely different that is exactly
the same.” You can build on what’s established but for the love of god, don’t
change it or you’ll never hear the end of it.
Now I present you with a quote from Amber Scott, writer
of Beamdog who has accepted reasonability for the things people have been
getting their knickers all in a bunch about:
“If there was something for the original
Baldur’s Gate that just doesn’t mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we
tried to address that],” said writer Amber Scott. “In the original there’s a
lot of jokes at women’s expense. Or if not a lot, there’s a couple, like Safana
was just a sex object in BG 1, and Jaheira was the nagging wife and that was
played for comedy. We were able to say, ‘No, that’s not really the kind of
story we want to make.’ In Siege of Dragonspear, Safana gets her own little
storyline, she got a way better personality upgrade. If people don’t like that,
then too bad.”
If
there was any sexism in BG, and BG2 I must have missed it, but I will take your
word for it, this is either a testament to my “male privilege” or Amber’s
oversensitivity. The main problem I have is Amber’s ambiguity on the jokes at
women’s expense is this: NEWS FLASH: Women are people, you are allowed to joke
at their expense! One of the main (and much beloved) male characters is as dumb
as a box of hammers, likely insane and is the constant butt of jokes at his
expense. Yet there aren’t people demanding he be changed because of his poor
representation of men, or the mentally ill (though I have a horrible feeling
now I have said that some idiots will rear their ugly head). If you want to be
accepted as equal, you have to take the good with the bad, that includes being
open to ridicule. If you want to be a protected class then the human mind will
accept that but you’ll cognitively categorise yourself among the most common of
protected classes “children”. Undoubtedly this will lead to the complaint that
nobody takes your seriously or your opinions are not given as much weight as
others (men?) in the room. No shit? It’s almost like by forfeiting your responsibility
to face any kind of hardship, ridicule and/or criticism you’ve also given up
your right to be taken seriously as an adult. Secondly, Safana was not a “Sex
Object” she was somebody who used sex appeal to get what she wanted. Whether
you like it or not, sex appeal is a very powerful social tool, and can
be employed to gain easy leverage over people. It is female empowerment, and if it’s not the type of female empowerment you like? Then I suggest that you go
live with the Amish, or join the conservatives/republican party and campaign to
establish McCarthy values back into America. Also stop slut shaming Safana you
shitlord.
By openly
admitting you decided to change established personalities to fit your own
personal sensibilities you’ve upset the fan-base, just like the developers of
the new Thief did when they turned Garret into “Vigilante McDarkavenger!” If
you’d have been smart, you’d have simply introduced characters that fitted your
own sensibilities as new NPC’s and then had them written out at the end of the
game to avoid continuity clashes with BG2. If they were well received you may
even have generated enough popularity form them to have them included in a BG2
expansion. Keep the existing characters the same and if they are some kind of sexist throwbacks to the primitive and backward era of the 90's then they will be condemned by their own actions and you set a clear precedent on how not to be. See how easy that was?
The
last thing seems like a minor complaint, so I saved it for last: One story in
the game involves you trying to save your mother, only to discover she has
taken care of matters herself and doesn’t need your help. Safana 2.0 even
snarks at you for assuming she needs help. With this in mind let me make one
thing clear: People play D&D both in table-top and on PC to be the hero/heroine
of the story, taking that away from them to push the “Strong independent woman
who don’t need no man” trope is not only counterproductive to the reason people
play D&D, it also feels like you’re beating the player with your morality
stick simply for enjoying the fantasy fulfilment of wanting to be the person
who comes to the rescue. You are taking the fun out of the game, and punishing people for wanting to experience that.
These complaints may be able to be overlooked or even forgiven if you hadn't signed off with a pithy “if people don’t like it, that’s too bad.”
Amber,
you are in the VG writing business to create games people like, not to push
your own ideologies, that is why people are getting mad. If you’d handled this train
wreck with even a grain of humility and empathy you’d have not generated nearly
the amount of controversy. People don’t get mad when you include progressive
themes in things, people do get mad when it’s done in a ham-fisted way, and
when they are beaten and bullied with the stick of
morality from your high horse when they point this out.
And beating and bullying people is not very progressive.
Also: A bunch of fucking morons
got mad that one of the minor NPC characters (after MUCH prying into their
lives) is revealed to be trans. This is not any “agenda pushing” this is just a
thing that happens in real life. By not making it a big deal it was handled tastefully
and with the appropriate amount of respect to the NPC in question. I invite you
to grow the fuck up. This is tiny font because i feel the "complaint" doesn't deserve the attention it is getting.
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